Syracuse, N.Y. — The Syracuse athletic department celebrated the women's basketball team's entrance into the ACC with an over-sized inflatable sneaker, an even more over-sized plastic ACC sign, a raffle and a T-shirt toss.

A handful of SU fans in the sparse crowd even wore the "Beat Duke" T-shirts that have become one of the more popular mementos from SU's inaugural season in its new conference.

Head coach Quentin Hillsman was in a much less celebratory mood.

"It's my responsibility to put a good product on the floor," Hillsman said. "You won't see a product like this again on the floor for the Syracuse women's basketball team — ever."

The Orange were outclassed by the No. 3 team in the country in its first ACC home game Thursday, suffering a third consecutive loss, this one 86-53 to the Blue Devils (15-1, 2-0 ACC).

The loss puts Syracuse (11-4, 0-2), a team seemingly forever on the upswing, in a hole at the outset of its first conference season. It also puts the pledge of the team not to fall back from last year's success, in some danger.

The defeat illustrated a pair of truths for the Syracuse women's basketball program that have proven difficult to alter despite the progress Hillsman has made turning the team respectable.

The Orange fanbase continues to be tepid about women's basketball with only 1,107 in attendance for the Duke game despite a raffle for tickets for a game between the men's programs. And whether it's the Big East or the ACC, a chasm continues to exist between SU and the top teams in its conference.

"We have to find a way when we have a chance to play great teams to play hard, to be competitive and win these basketball games," Hillsman said. "Games like this are program-changing wins. It's my responsibility to make sure we get better, have a program that can go out and be competitive in our conference. We will be."

Instead of a Big East schedule loaded with Connecticut and Notre Dame and Louisville, the Orange have transitioned to one headlined by Duke and Notre Dame and soon-to-join Louisville. In essence, the Orange have jumped from the frying pan of the Big East into wherever it is that Blue Devils come from.

Despite the presence of a pair of sophomore McDonald's All-Americans on its roster, the Orange looked capable of physically competing with the defending champion Blue Devils only briefly.

After hitting five of its first seven 3-pointers to race out to an early lead, the Orange made three of its last 31 against Duke's zone defense. Brianna Butler's 14 points did little damage against an opponent with a starting lineup averaging in double-digits, a center (Elizabeth Williams) with blocks in 85 straight games, a point guard (Alexis Jones) who sliced through the Orange's zone defense and a small forward (Tricia Liston) who shot it all up.

As a member of the Big East last year, Syracuse appeared to make progress, rising to a tie for third place. Its sophomore stars Butler and Sykes have pledged to maintain that effort or improve on it.

"We're a great basketball, we just had a couple down moments," Butler said.

The three losses, however, match Syracuse's worst losing streak of last season. Its next opponent, Georgia Tech, earned AP Top 25 votes last week. After that comes No. 6 Maryland.

"The ACC is a great conference and all these teams are looking to win as well," Sykes said. "We knew nobody was going to let us come into their house. We have to tough it out. We have to keep fighting."

Hillsman's response to the loss, prompted by Syracuse's lack of competitiveness, was different from his tone a day earlier, when he casually justified SU's previous defeats by noting they were all road defeats against quality opponents that had earned Top 25 votes.

The Orange already owns a handful of significant non-conference wins and, with an RPI of No. 17 in the country before facing Duke, SU would easily be in the NCAA Tournament if brackets were selected today.

"It's just the beginning of ACC play," Sykes said. "Now we know we have to be tough every game for 40 minutes. We have a lot more games left."

Including five more Top 25 opponents, a fact that leaves Hillsman knowing the Orange's true progress will be tested again soon.

"I'm excited that we play Sunday," Hillsman said. "Because you know what? We're going to find out. We're going to find out right where we are and there ain't going to be no doubt about it. Either we're going to know that we're tough or we're going to know that we're not."